TG,
I believe this year (or last) was the first year when the Goverhment recorded the first surplus, if Social Security was excluded. It is theoretically possible for the debt to go up despite of that, since there are some off balance sheet items. These are probably minor, but still can cause an increase in debt, even though the official budget is in surplus.
If you want to see a total travesty of ... errr.. accounting, it would be the budget of NY state. The state keeps borrowing and spending money off budget, and reports balanced budget or a surplus.
There is another theory, or a counting scheme, where all the IOUs, guarantees are counted, for example, a 65 year old person about to retire would be recorded as a liability of several 100 thousand dollars minus his proportional share of the SS surplus - if that could be calculated). Also, all the loan guarantees woud be added to the debt as well. By this count, the debt would go from ~4 trillion to I believe ~10 to 20 trillion.
Joe |
